Saturday, 4 April 2009

Catching Up

Hi everyone,

I know I've been pretty absent lately. Took on too many things at once and ended up making myself knackered. Then I kept on going regardless and made myself ill. And then I caught the fluey sort of bug that's going around.

So um... yeah, not a lot of blogging happening.

I don't know where the time went, but I've only just realised that the first quarter of 2009 is over! I still haven't decided what my new years resolutions are going to be, lol.

Anyway, I thought I'd get back into blogging with a bit of a re-cap of the last three months, followed by a few resolutions for the next three months.

The year so far:

I've worked on 16 different first drafts, re-writes and edits. (No wonder I'm knackered, lol!)

Gaydar - my first project for the year and the first in an unofficial series of Lust Bites - written, edited, submitted and already published. Pretty good way to start the year!

Gay Like You - wrote it in January, re-wrote it in March. Submitted and accepted - It's due out June 22ed.

Sealing the Deal - written in January - edited and submitted in February. This one went to a new publisher. They requested the full, but I don't have a final answer yet. But I said I was going to try a second publisher and I did, so even if they don't accept it, I made progress :)

Fair Play - another one written in January. This is the second in the collection that starts with Sealing the Deal, so I'm holding off on doing anything with it until I know what will happen to the first one.

Then, February and in my infinite wisdom I decided I should write some short stories - in spite of the fact I've never really been able to get to grips with them. I wrote the first drafts of four short stories. I now have the first drafts of the first chapters of four different novellas. Did I mention I really suck at short stories?

One short is going to be a Collared novella. Another will be the start of a new collection of novellas planning. Another will be a Perfect Timing novella. The fourth might well end up in that series Sealing the Deal is starting.

I guess it goes without saying that these are all now in my to-re-write list, lol.

Next project was editing up Yes! into an anthology submission. I wrote the first draft in 2007. Re-wrote it in 2008. Edited it in February. It's been accepted, but the final decision for the anthology has yet to be made, so not entirely sure where it will be be published yet, but it will be published. My second acceptance of the year.

Then I moved on two three more stories for the Lust Bite collection - one is still a first draft and needs to be re-written before I can do anything else with it. Another is in the same stage, but is my next editing project - so hopefully it won't linger at the first draft stage for too long :)

The other is Gay for Pay - which was written in February, edited in March and accepted earlier this week. It's due to be released October 26th. (More about that in a separate blog post.)

The other two are paranormal anthology/seasonal submissions. The werewolf one was written in March. It's on my to-edit list. I'm finishing the vampire one today.

So all in all - a lot to be happy about!

On the slight downside. The one resolution I managed to make while it was still January was to cut down the number of projects that I had left lingering at first draft stage. The idea was - once they are finished I can get them out of my head, so I have less stories whirling around all the time.

I started the year with 52 projects that needed further attention. I now have 54.

Therefore, my big resolution for the second quarter of 2009 is to cut that down to at least below 50. That means submitting at least five stories that I've already written in some form or other. If I start any new ones they'll be added on to the end of the list, I'll have to submit more old ones to make room for them.

Other resolutions. Blog more and keep up to date with other peoples blog posts more.

Rest more to make sure I get healthier again - and then do my best to stay that way.

And that's it.

I've got a few other things to share, but I think they warrent their own blog posts, so they'll be up in a minute.